Big Stupid Tommy

An online journal from perhaps the biggest, stupidest Tommy on all the internet.

Saturday, May 31, 2003

I'm tireder than shit. 11 hours on one of the busiest donation days I've evey seen. Today came close to beating this past New Years. What I just said concerned a very select few. Regardless, I'm tired.

Would it change your opinion of me if I told you that I ate cereal from a bedpan?

It's not true.

But would it change your opinion of me for having said it?

Are you frightened of the children on the National Spelling Bee? Because they intimidate and frighten me immensely. What with their wonderful powers of spelling and what not. Personally, I believe those who moderate the spelling bee are occasionally frightened (and sometimes irked) by the abilities of these wunderkind. And occasionally, a speller will turn up missing. And the news never reaches us because Scripps Howard is one of the most powerful media conglomerates in the world. Easy to cover up.

These kids are much better spellers than I am. On the words they're giving on the ESPN re-broadcast, I'm coming up at about a 3 or 4 out of 10 average. And I consider mysellf a much gud spellr.

Actually, I think I'm a better than average speller. But I have a real problem with your/you're and its/it's. And occasionally the to/too thing.

But I'm fairly sure most, if not all, of these children would beat the pants off me in a spelling contest.

Here are a few contests in which I feel I would fare well against the pool of spellers in the finals:

Hot Dog Eating (I would beat most, if not all)
Cereal Eating
Lasagna Eating
Arm Wrestling (Most, if not all)
Intercontinental Champion Naming (I would play at least to a tie with most, if not all)
Monkey Shovelling
Four Wheeler ATV Race
Competitive Comic Book Reading
Shoe Size
Hat Size
Pants Size
Shirt Size
Knowing my Own Middle Name
Naming Characters from the show Key West
Weight Lifting
Height
Number of times having driven an automobile
Number of "R" rated movies having seen (Most if not all)
Feigning Illiteracy
Most hair lost in lifetime
Beard Growing
Number of times having met Bert Prentice
Tobacco Chewing (Most, if not all)
Endurance Snoring
Fastest to Wake Up
Petting a dog
Number of times being bitten by a cat
Fingernail growing contest
Living with Bill Bacon
Sandwich eating
Pizza Eating (with meat)
Pizza Eating (no meat)
Unaided Flight
Competitive Ignorance
Running the Gamut
Long Distance Sleeping
Knuckle Cracking (most, if not all)
Pants Wearing (most, if not all)
Dwarf Tossing
Rebounding Contest
Sumo Wrestling Match
Wasting Time
Competitive Being from Riceville, Tennessee
Least Amount of Money in pocket (most, if not all)
Nose Hair (most, if not all)

Mo Vaughn's arthritic knee is so bad he probably needs knee replacement surgery. Such a move would end his career. He's seeking second opinions and whatnot.

But he's got that guaranteed baseball money.

Vaughn will earn $15 million next season and has a $2 million buyout for 2005.

SWEET!

No working and getting paid $15 million dollars!!?!? Show me the downside to that. And you get $2 million to get your contract bought out after that. Granted, I understand there are taxes to pay. There are agents to pay. There may be accountants to pay. Possibly hangers on to pay for something.

But still. $15 million dollars, for doing nothing.

Where do I sign up?

Here's my plan. I'm going to practice really, really hard. I'm going sign with a smaller market team who's become dazzled by my undiscovered talent. We'll say, the Pirates. And I'll play for the Pirates, working my way quickly up the ladder in the minor leagues. My rookie season, I'll come in second in the Rookie of the Year to a guy from Japan. But the next year, I'll hit .331, hit 41 homers and drive in 121 runs. And the Pirates will lose in the first round of the playoffs that year. To the Dodgers. But I'll win the MVP. After that, I'll play one more season in Pittsburgh, where my numbers won't be as good (.294, 33, 99), but still respectable.

And then my contract will be up. And Pittsburgh won't be able to afford my talented behind. And I'll court offers from several big league teams, but finally decide on playing with the Arizona Diamondbacks, because they've offered me a 3 year $56 million dollar contract.

Thursday, May 29, 2003

Ain't Mike Tyson great? Just for conversation? I mean, the man said in an interview today that he was so angry about his rape conviction eleven years ago, that now he really does want to rape both his accuser and the accuser's mother.

You can only watch Mike Tyson with a detached sort of horror.

He's an animal. Plain and simple. I'd be a hypocrite if I said somebody shouldn't pay attention to his antics, because if I see a Mike Tyson story in the newspaper or on TV, I'm there, dude. Paying rapt attention. Just to see the freakshow.

This is worse than if O.J. said he's pissed off about that whole trial thing eight years ago, and now he wishes he really had killed Nicole and Ron Goldman. It's worse because O.J. can't, on a whim of drunken insanity, go kill Ron and Nicole again.

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

Once upon a time, when I was but a wee lad, I went to nursery school. Mom would load me into the blue Chevy Nova we had every morning at the butt crack of dawn. We'd listen to Kenny Rogers 8-tracks and drive over to the nursery school. It was called Le Petite Academy. And the warden's name was Miss Couch.

There was playground equipment at the nursery school. I was a country kid, and I peed against it sometimes. I got in trouble once for tossing a stick backwards over my shoulder and having it hit one of the windows.

At Le Petite Academy, when we had to play inside, often because of rain, but sometimes because of damnations. One of the inside toys was a large metal cylinder, about four feet long, and about three feet in diameter. One day I and another child were sitting inside the tube. Probably we were playing car, or perhaps truck. Nonetheless, we sat inside, whiling away the time, enjoying more pure a fun time than any I've had since.

There were older kids that would come to Le Petite Academy from the nearby elementary schools for after school care. And on this particular day, they were making a tower out of the wooden blocks we had to play with. You remember wooden blocks, right? Small pieces of wood, cut into geometric patters, like rectangles and cylinders. Made from wood. Wood....from trees.

But they were making a tower, these older kids were. And it was really tall. It was at least five feet tall!!!!

To a 4-year-old five is a lot of feet.

But anyway, there was this one kid. A troublemaker. His name was Ty. I remember Ty actually being the first kid I remember using a cuss word (damn). I now list Ty as one of the top 5 influences upon my life. Well, Ty decided that he'd had enough of this giant tower, and he pulled one of the key support blocks. And the whole five foot tall structure came crashing down.

Remember where I was? I was in that weird metal tube, pretending to drive or fly or haul lumber. Well, we're in this tube, and the tower of wooden blocks falls on top of the tube.

And brother, was it ever loud. At that time, I remember thinking "Jesus Christ! That's the loudest frigging sumbitch I ever heard in my whole damn life!" Actually, what I thought was: "That's the loudest noise ever!!!!!"

Boy! Was I ever a naive little screwball.

Because tonight's NWA-TNA show at the Asylum was whole hell of a lot louder than all that block falling tower mess. Tonight's show was "as loud as hell," but not as traumatic. Of course, we were sitting right under the speaker. That Jeremy Borash has the shrillest voice ever put on a man. We should count ourselves fortunate that interviewer Goldylocks didn't have to scream in surprise or anger at anybody. Metro police should contract her out to replace the sirens on their cars.

Lots of Cubs fans at the show, too. Referee Andrew Thomas as well as the ringleader of the world renowned Heel Section both count themselves among the long suffering.

I got a pen in the mail today!!!!!! Perhaps it's a sign! Probably, it's a pen.

It's a Homer Simpson Pen!!!!!

It writes. In blue. That part is great.

But it's all full of Homer Simpson sayings!!!! I laughed myself mad!!!!!

!!!!!

Every time you click the button to get the point to come out, it has a new Homer saying in the window on the side of the pen. My personal favorite: "Every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain."

I read August Wilson's Fences yesterday. It was good, if a little disheartening. Maybe disheartening isn't the right word, but I'm the type that roots for a character. And I was rooting for Troy Maxson. I know this is a stance that can get you into trouble in literature, but I can't help myself sometimes. It's one of those things where you know Troy is going to fall into his family's cycle, but you don't want him to complete the cycle. Still, the pervading theme of taking the "the straights with the curves" I can really appreciate.

I did get a good laugh out of Wilson's stage directions for Troy's brother Gabriel. Gabriel was wounded in the second World War. He enters with a trumpet tied to his waste, as he believes with every fiber of his being that he is the archangel.

I've just been sitting here for the past fifteen minutes writing a post about a bowel movement. I realized that it's not that interesting to anybody. And as much as I love bathroom humor, I realize that I'm in the minority. I won't bore or disgust you with all the details. I'll just say that it was cool after having stood up for nearly most of the day to actually get to sit down. And I won't call the B.M. a religious experience, but there was a lot of harp music seemingly coming from nowhere. (Heh...no jokes about trumpets. I would never joke about that. Not living with Bill.)

I also realize that it's pretty boring to talk about radio stations, as I did this morning. Mostly I was upset at having my routine interrupted, so I was passing the time. Sorry to have wasted yours, if you read through it looking for a nugget of something funny or even wise. But if that's why you were here, you got pretty much what you deserved. Go do something useful.

Bill speaks briefly about the click it, or ticket campaign over here. He takes the stance that the guvmint shouldn't be able to make him put his seat belt on. Or wear a motorcycle helmet. I say that it's a tax issue. The more money local and state governments spend having to squeegee your mangled carcass off the highways, the more they have to tax you. And the more they have to tax you, the less you get to spend on such things as: pecan sandies, pants and tickets to pro wrestling. So I'm wearing my seatbelt, and I wish you would too. So that I can spend my money on pro wrestling tickets, but not so much pants or pecan sandies, unless one of the two should become necessary.

Has everybody seen the "Click it, or Ticket" commercial where four different drivers are pulled over by four different cops but cited for the same infraction: no seat belt?

And has anybody else noticed the similarity between the music in that commercial and the music Chris Pontius uses in Jackass as "Party Boy?" I think mostly it's the techno backbeat.

You know, I've caught a couple of the games on ESPN where David Justice has been providing color commentary, and I like his work. And considering I hate just about every color commentator on baseball, that's saying something. I really wish ESPN would get away from their habit of showing a shot of the announcers at least once an inning.

Speaking of baseball (which I realize I hardly ever do), I'd like to congratulate MTSU's baseball team for making the championship tournament. They're the 4 seed in the Starkville regional. They'll start out against Mississippi State. North Carolina and Missouri are also in their bracket.

Man! That was that a good bowel movement.

Julie, Jason and I watched S1m0ne last night. I liked the effort, but it was flawed. It tried to be funny at the wrong times, often failing. And the parts that were funny, I'm not sure I was supposed to laugh at. It was going for the darker vein of comedy, I guess. Has Al Pacino tried to do a real straightlaced comedy? I know DeNiro has tried a few times now (perhaps coming closest in Meet the Parents). I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

I leave you now with a description of one of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes comics.

Calvin is taking a test. The question: "Explain Newton's First Law of Motion in your own words."

My friend Julie has been told she's not allowed to read at her desk when work is slow. But we discussed last night the fact that they never said she's not allowed to read in the hallway. Or at a neighbor's desk.

First, it's Memorial Day. Thank somebody who took time to protect your butt.

Second, Memorial Day notwithstanding, I don't much care for my morning routine being messed with. It's nothing too big or serious, but I like listening to the Bob and Tom Show. Their site says they'll be running a "Best of..." show. But 102.9 has instead decided to play "music."

Maybe I'm older than my time, but a lot of the music they play today doesn't do anything for me. I don't mind the White Stripes and the Coldplay they every hour or so. And I'll give them their due because they've played a couple from Johnny Cash's American IV. But beyond that, they haven't played a whole lot that does much for me.

Problem is, none of the other radio stations around here are much good to me, either. It's Country Music Heaven around here. I like Johnny Cash, and a lot of the older stuff. But the stuff they play on the new Country stations is just as bad as what they play on the new rock stations. There's nothing to anything that they play. Is bubblegum country an apt enough description?

There's an oldies station that I listen to when I'm feeling down. It's the stuff that my folks listened (and still listen) to, so I know all the words. When I'm down, I can just drive and sing along with all that stuff. They play a lot of bubblegum, too. But maybe given enough time, even bubblegum becomes credible.

The classic rock station doesn't bother me. And they've even veered slightly from their hardcore southern rock stance slightly. But they're very big on Rush, Zeppelin and Tom Petty along with the southern standards: Marshall Tucker, George Thorogood and, of course, Lynyrd Skynrd. This was the station that led the mourning charge whenever Dale Earnhardt died.

I washed my work shirt in the sink last night, and I don't think I washed it well enough.

Also, there's an 80's station. But I think they play the same 40-50 songs over the course of the day. Which is fine, but you can only hear "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" so many times before you totally lose it bawling at work.

And then there's the River. All your soft rock classic for nonoffensive work listening.

Sunday, May 25, 2003

It's a coincidence. I know it is.

But there's a car commercial that I just saw that talks about the space for differing opinions inside its cargo space.

In the commercial, A guy and a gal are at an antique barn. The guy looks bored, and until he finds a juke box in the back. Smoke on the Water plays over the commercial. And then the couple leaves with what the girl wanted (an antique chest) and no juke box.

The coincidence, and my problem, is that I wrote a story very similar to this a while back and submitted it a couple of places. In it, the guy's antiquing with the wife, and wants to get a vintage juke box from an antique shop, but his wife won't let him. And the story, which I admit is not very good, proceeds to them both getting killed by the crazy owner of another antique shop.

It's a coincidence. The antique store and the juke box. But it's a little annoying. Don't know if I'll work that story back around. Really, I probably wouldn't have, anyway. It's not very good.

I realize that we're not even a third of the way through the season. But waking up this Sunday morning, both the Cubs and the Red Sox lead their divisions by a game and a half. In a scenario that would be part cool, part nightmare, the Cubs would finally make it to the World Series, but lose in the ninth inning of the seventh game to the Red Sox, the only team with more legends about curses and whatnot than the Cubs. Honestly, I think a Babe Ruth curse beats an Angry Goatkeeper curse hands down.

Of course, by having mentioned even the possibility of the Cubs contending that far down the road, I've jinxed them once again.

Saturday, May 24, 2003

If you have access to a jack in the box (the toy, not the eatery), put it in view of a group of people. Preferably a small group, 2-3 people.

A huge portion of the population is either single, without children or beyond the point in their lives where they have small children to play with the jack in the box. So most haven't played with one in a good period of time. So if one is put into their field of vision, they'll pick it up to play with it.

Now, get behind them if you can. As they turn the crank, watch intently. Right around the same time that the jack will jump out of the box, Scream! Scream loudly! RAAAH!!!!!!!!

One was at work tonight, and the manager and assistant manager were playing with one. I meant to make it look like I'd been scared silly by the jack jumping out of the box, but it had the added effect of making the two of them jump out of their socks.

I was muchly amused.

On the radio today, a sports commentator brought up a woman professional golfer other than Annika, and said she was ugly. He said she looked like if John Candy had made it with a goose.

Also, the sports commentator was saying that at some time in his life time, he expects to see a billion dollar professional sports contract.

A caller called in to respond to another question. I think they were talking about LeBron James' ridiculous contract from Nike. And the commentator asked the caller if he agreed that there would be a billion dollar contract in his life time.

The guy said, "No, I think the world economy will collapse before then. A by-product of that will be people realizing how worthless professional athletes and athletics really are."

The commentators were stunned into silence. And to be honest, the dire tone in his voice gave me serious pause, too.

I don't think anybody will ever lose faith in the importance of professional ice skating. If all others fall, we'll always have the triple-lutz.

You know. You pay me to create art. You pay me money. A somewhat significant amount. And I'll create art. I'll even name it after you, if you want. I say again. I don't paint all that well. I can sing but I'm not much in the songwriting/composing department. I write. You judge for yourself the level of my artistic achievement.

This is about the third or fourth time that I've asked for a patron. Can you believe that not once have I gotten even one response?

Friday, May 23, 2003

Way back in the day, I played Micro League II baseball. It was a game played with two 5.25" diskettes. And the game put together the greatest teams of all time. The 27 Yankees were there. As were the 1945 Cubs, 72 A's, 75 Reds and so forth. It had a lot of the teams from the previous five years. 84 Tigers and 85 Royals. But it aslo had the rosters from the 1986 National League and American League All-Star Teams.

I can't tell you how many times I played those two team. I picture it now, a team led by Dwight Gooden, Ryne Sandberg and Darryl Strawberry locked in a best of 3,121 series. I was a National League guy, so I played the N.L. most of the time.

One of the things that pissed me off was that the game put limitations on how long you could use players. It wnet along with MLB All Star rules and said that the starting pitcher could only go the first three innings. But Micro League would also occasionally make you take out other players citing an inning rule.

I bring this up only because it pissed me off royally that I would have to take out Keith Hernandez in favor of Glenn Davis. In the end, it didn't matter. None of the players' stats had anything to do with whether the players got hits or didn't. You were the one swinging the bat. But it was the principle of the thing. If I wanted the N.L. to beat the A.L., I wanted the best players in there to do it. Ozzie Smith, and not Barry Larkin. Who the hell was Barry Larkin?

And I brought that up only because Rob Neyer once again said some smart stuff. It's no wonder that nobody tunes in to the All-Star game around the end. Who wants to see the game come down to a matchup of Raul Ibanez vs. Jung Bong?

Not that either will necessarily make the All Star Teams. I just like saying their names.

But do you get my point? Do you really?

If I don't necessarily care to see it, the average goofball fan out there definitely doesn't want to see it.

Just when I start actually feeling sad that I won't be working with a couple of the people there at work, the District Manager comes by and does something completely smarmy and assholish. Plus, we got a couple of those customers. You know. The ones the world revolves around. It's all good.

Do you want to know what my favorite part of Return of the Jedi is? I'll bet you don't. But you're here, and while I won't hold your face to the computer screen, pinning your eyes open Clockwork Orange style until you've read it all, I strongly suggest that you do. There might be something truly insightful.

Anyway. Return of the Jedi? It's the part when Lando Calrissian and Nien Nunb have just exited hyperspace in the Millennium Falcon to begin the attack on the second Death Star. Lando's asking for a reading on the space station's defensive shield.

"We've got to be able to get some kind of reading on the shield up or down."

"Jamming us? How could they be jamming us if...." as the horror slowly dawns on Lando Calrissian, "if they don't know we're coming."

"Break off the attack! The shield is still up," Lando barks into the comm.

Wedge Antilles: "Are you sure? I get no reading"

"All Craft Pull Up!"

I think John Williams score right there at that moment is probably my favorite piece from all the Star Wars movies, too.

But still, as much as I like that scene (and I've watched it roughly 11,000 times), the Colt 45 commercials, where Billie Dee Williams says "Smooth," are collectively Billie Dee's finest dramatic moment.

There's a great number they just mentioned on Bob and Tom. It's from a story about a George W. Bush doll that farts. I think it's called the Pull-My-Finger President. That phone number to order is 1-877-PASSWIND.

Okey dokey. I need somebody to explain this whole Annika Sorenstam (sp?) situation to me. If you're not bright enough to not write your by-laws to be so inclusive, then why the hell is any member of the PGA complaining?

I say this: The by-laws of the Professional Golfers' Association are deisgned for them to have the best golfers. Period.

I say let her see if she can play with the guys. I saw follow Heavenly Tiger Woods' advice and let her play in five or six tournaments, to see how she really does stack up. I personally think it'd be cool to have a professional competition truly be open to everybody. so long as they meet the competitive standard.

Now that I think about it, they've got women in racing. Both open-wheel (Sarah Fischer) and NASCAR (Shawna Robinson, and coming up, Deborah Renshaw) let the women compete with the men. They're credentials are like any of the gentlemen's. And they play on the same playing field.

I say that so long as Annika (or any woman) can play according to the by-laws of the PGA, then shut the hell up and let her play.

More than anything, I think that golf is a white guy's game, traditionally. And anything that screws with that is strictly verboten.

In other Sporting News:

Steve McNair got pulled over in Nashville for DUI. I realize that at 2:15 with several beers in you, you aren't making the best decisions. But by god I can only thinkg of 100,000 Nashvillian Titan Fans who would have given Steve a ride home.

Also:

Detroit got the second pick in the NBA draft, via a trade with Memphis. Watching what little basketball that I did this season, I think the only thing Detroit was missing was a dependable scorer. I'm thinking Detroit and Carmelo Anthony are a nice fit.

Also:

The Semi-Final Round in this year's Intercontinental Boochy Tag Tournament pits the team of Dennis Rodman and Corey Feldman against Rosie O'Donnell and Santa Claus in the first contest, with Dom Deluise and Scott Baio vying against defending champions John Kruk and Stephen Hawking.

Well. I'm looking harder for a job. I turned in my notice to my current employer yesterday. It's been a long chain of events especially after we got the new district manager and my job got reorganized. But truth be told, even before that I wasn't happy there. Not for a while. And it doesn't make sense to be as broke as I am all the time and be as unhappy. So I guess I'm looking for either less aggravation for less money, or more money for my current level of aggravation.

So, I'm leaving. There are other, better jobs out there for a strapping young lad like myself. Any suggestions?

Monday, May 19, 2003

I just wanted to take a moment to congratulate Mark Dawson, who won last week's Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions. He always struck me as a nice feller. Usually he whipped our butts at Quiz Bowl competitions, but he was fun to play against all the same.

Cubs lost today. Cardinals took 3 of 4 from them in the series. Carlos Zambrano just got outpitched today, losing a heartbreaking 2-0 decision.

I was counting my fingers today, and had a real scare when I got up to 15.

I put it to you the reader that there is no more defining moment in human artistic achievement than the scene of the Andy Griffith Show, when Barney buys the car, and Gomer, Opie, Aunt Bea and Andy have to push the car back. None. Here's how the rank goes:

Sunday, May 18, 2003

Does anybody else, when they hear the phrase "freak accident," think of something along the lines of Michael Jackson running his transfer truck cab over a tricycle-riding Andre the Giant?

Tonight's best Fox Sunday TV quote comes from King of the Hill, when Hank says to Peggy:

"You know, if you asked me, there might just be a silver lining to our son not being a singing cowboy."

On WTCI's High School "Toss Up" program, my alma mater McMinn County High School beat Baylor, a Chattanooga based private school. That did my heart good, as I always enjoyed beating a private school. But then in the next half-hour, Ooltewah High School beat the living crap out of McMinn. I didn't bother even to watch until the end. It was that disheartening.

The questions were much harder than I remember them being when I played high school quiz bowl. Which means either the questions are getting harder, or I'm getting dumber.

Saturday, May 17, 2003

I had me a legitimate poop-your-pants moment today. I was driving on the interstate, and a pretty good thunderstorm blows in on my right. It's blowing sheets of rain at me and making it generally difficult to drive.

I look up, and I notice I can see lots of rain blowing sideways. I noted it only because I'd never seen it doing anything like that up that high before. Huge sheets of rain, up at the tree tops. I'm sure it does it all the time, but I've just never noticed it before.

And then, it got scary.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a tree fall on the edge of the woods that line the interstate.

And about the time I pass that point of the forest, the wind catches me. It catches my truck, and shoves me sideways. It felt like getting hit by another car. That's how hard the wind hit me. It hit me, and skidded me sideways from the right lane into the passing lane. I suppose I'm lucky nobody was driving next to me.

Just never been blown ten feet sideway by the wind.

I couldn't see. The wind was blowing hard enough that as my windshield wipers hit their apex, they would hang there a little bit in the wind. I pulled off the interstate and pulled into the Burger King. I waited in my truck for a minute. When the rain lightened up enough, I jogged inside. I ordered a Sprite and I waited a few minutes for the storm to pass by. A feller who was hauling a horse trailer told me the wind picked his trailer up onto its driver's side wheels.

Wind. Hell yeah.

Also, there was a little bit of a tense moment when a kid with a shaved head turned around to leave the counter at Burger King. Standing behind me was a black family, and they saw what I saw at the same time. The kid had swastika tattoos on his forearms and the "SS" lightning symbol inked onto the side of his head. As he turned, he met eyes with me, and then the father of the family standing behind me. He quickly looked at the ground and left the Burger King with his food. Even in the middle of the thunderstorm.
It was just an odd occurrence.

Friday, May 16, 2003

A lot of people will say a lot of nice things a lot more eloquently than I ever could. I will say that I was extremely saddened to hear of the passing of June Carter Cash. She always struck me as a classy, classy lady. An excellent musician and singer, she'll be missed terribly in that respect. And hey! If it wasn't for her, we probably wouldn't have Johnny Cash today, either.

I hesitate to say anything positive about the Cubs. After 20 years of fandom, it seems that whenever I start having faith in their abilities, it's when they falter, fail or otherwise blow it.

But here's something I've taken to heart. In previous seasons, they've had no problem getting up for the big games. They don't necessarily have an excellent record against the better teams in the league, but usually it's a winning record where they've at least competed with the Astros, Cardinals, Braves and Giants of the world.

But when they ended up playing the Brewers, Padres and Pittsburgh Pirates of the world, they seem to get creamed. Over the past few seasons, these are teams who are generally pretty bad, and I don't know what the deal was. These were teams that a contending team should beat, and the Cubs never could. It didn't help that the Cubs seemed to play the Brewers something like 90 times in a season, and they'd lose every game.

So it's a little comforting to see the Cubs beat a team like the Brewers. Not because I like seeing a first place team beat a last place team, but because these are the games that the Cubs need to win if they're going to contend. If you split a season series with, say, the Cardinals, but go 9-3 against the Brewers, you're 15-9, and that's okay. Because, seriously, the Brewers are some slaw.

Still, that 17 inning monster yesterday shows that Brewers seem to have no trouble getting up any time they play the Cubs. I tend to think Davey Lopes had something to do with that. He was old school.

I wish I had a zebra. Maybe a little tiny zebra. About the size of a labrador. That would eat dog food or something similar. I don't think they make Zebra Chow.

I am the true King of Beers.

I don't know how much I've mentioned it. My downstairs neighbors suck ass. The mom's up really early. Like 4:30 and 5. The kid is supposed to be up around 5:30 or 5:45. I know this because the yelling to get up starts at 5:45. Each of the last four mornings it's been a constant fight that starts with "why won't you get up?" and progresses from there. Topics covered this week include the boy's poor scholastic performance, how Mom's cooking sucks and how she's allowed to swear casually but he is not.

I hate when I do stupid things. Like when I make a sandwich to take to work with me, and then leave the mayonnaise out on the counter all day.

I ate oatmeal for supper last night.

Robert Stack passed away the other day. His work on Airplane is stupendous, and he actually scared me a couple of times when I was but a child with his deadpan, hardcase delivery to the questions asked in Unsolved Mysteries, especially when the mysteries were of the paranormal sense. But I'll forever associate him with perhaps the greatest movie 1986 had to offer: He was the voice of Ultra Magnus in Transformers: the Movie. He says "Open, Dammit! Open!" Yep. Curse words.

I've written Marvel Comics probably a dozen times asking when they plan on putting their line of Star Comics from the mid 80's into Essential Trade format. Specifically the titles Foofur, Strawberry Shortcake and Peter Porker: Spider-Ham. I think I'm being ignored.

Bill's new game to annoy me? It started last week and continued this week when we stopped for food on the way to wrestling. To take his sweet time at the order thingamajig after I've ordered, and pause for a long time between each item he's ordered saying "Uuuuhhhh." Accept that he's letting it come out in a creak, just barely using his voice at all. I don't know why, but in that small confined space, it drives me nuts.

I think Labradoodle is the stupidest name we've come up for a breed of dog, yet. I'm going to breed a new dog, and call it a Shithound. Or maybe a Fartweiler. Or maybe Crapdragon.

Can I just say that it did my heart good to see "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair get a clean submission victory over Hurricane Helms last Monday on Raw?

While we're on the subject of stupid names, I want to opportunity to name a race horse. My top five names for a racehorse:

Why is it that every night after I've been up somewhere between 16 to 18 hours I start to get very, very sleepy. Every night. For the last 26 years or so. It's happening right now. I've been up since around 6 and I've been up 17 hours, and I'm starting to get sleepy. What's up with that?

I'm a stubborn sumbitch, and since it's been in the plans for a while now, and since I don't get weekends off, I'm planning on heading up anyway. If I get wet, I get wet. Unless it's expected to be ridiculously nasty. I'm not all that keen on sitting out in a constant downpour all weekend. Steven likewise said he's not comfortable with thunderstorms and a nylon tent.

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

There was a mystery food at the Shoney's breakfast bar. Here are the facts:

1. It was processed into sticks about three inches long and an inch wide.

2. The insides were meat. Not bread. Meat. Conjecture at this point: Fish Sticks. But on the Breakfast Bar?

3. Its insides were white.

4. Here it gets scary. Its texture was neither fish nor chicken. Its breaded exterior was the toughest part.

5. The taste was the most confusing part. It had none of its own. It tasted like the vegetable oil it was fried in.

Normally, I don't pick something off the breakfast bar if I can't immediately recognize it. Bill got his first, and we discussed it. He ate all his.

On my second voyage, I picked one of my own deep-fried mystery meat bars. Bill was able to eat the whole thing without immediate incident. I ate one bite, and was too confused by the complete lack of sensory information in my mouth. It wasn't bad tasting. But the lack of absolute indentification of the mystery meat didn't make it a pleasant experience, either.

Tuesday, May 13, 2003

A couple of corrections and/or additions to this morning's rant about why Allan "Bud" Selig is a pain in the ass.

One might make the argument that David Wells is an old-timey baseball player who's more about baseball than being an athlete. But he's been on a monster exercise training regimen for a couple or three years now. Especially since rejoining the Yankees. And he doesn't party as much as he used to.

And I think I spoke wrongly when I said Ron Darling. I think he's the Hawaiian pretty boy. I think it was Sid Fernandez for whom "All You Can Eat" was a dare instead of an invitation. I just remember that instead of curving around on his back because it's too skinny, the lettering for "Fernandez" was a straight line across his back.

I'm allowed to talk this way because I'm like Sid Fernandez, except without all that baseball talent and the 1986 World Series Ring.

I've been thinking about this for a couple of days, and I feel like the biggest problem in Major League Baseball is its car salesman commissioner. Jim Caple agrees.

Though I'll take him to task on a couple of issues. I think baseball does have a couple of problems.

I'm guessing the Twins and A's making it to the playoffs last year just shows that a small market team can compete if it's well run. My problem is that if you have a checkbook, George Steinbrenner, you don't have to be particularly well run yet still compete. But that's American business in general, isn't it? From what I hear Wal-Mart is one of the mose back-asswards places a man can ever work. But aren't they the single largest retail conglomerate ever?

If Randy Pearcy down at Outer Limits (my local comic shop) misspends a thousand dollars, hypothetically speaking, he can't absorb the cost the same way a Books-a-Million can.

I feel like a salary cap is still a good idea, if only to keep salaries from inflating further. Competitive balance notwithstanding, I feel like $14 million, $18 million and $25 million salaries are part of why tickets have gotten ridiculously expensive. Who can afford to take their family out to a game? Hell, how can your normal guy who attends a dozen games a year afford to pay? The economy has something to do with this. Simple economics.

That, combined with the fact that big league millionaire baseball players are so out of touch with and so far removed from the general public that where's the fun in going out to watch them?

I miss John Kruk. Kruk was a relatable human being. Because he looked slobby. He was heavy. He smoked. He drank. I think he was one of the last proponents of the idea of the everyman ballplayer. Once, during spring training, he got caught by a fan ordering and eating a hot dog during a game. She chastised him for being an athlete and eating crap. He told her "I'm not an athlete, ma'am. I'm a baseball player."

If there is a problem here, it's that there are too many athletes and not enough baseball players.

Not that I want to watch a team made up of Ron Darling, John Kruk, Rusty Staub and Greg Luzinski. But I certainly can't relate to these "athletes" and their weight training and nutritional supplements. Sammy Sosa is the Incredible Hulk. Todd Helton? Barry Bonds?

If I ran baseball, I think that's one of the big things I'd work on. I'd find new ways for the fans to relate to the players. Whether that's following the old NASCAR model from the 80's and early 90's and completely highlight a feud between teams or even players (I think they tried with Clemens/Piazza, but think Yankees/Red Sox or Cubs/Cardinals or Dodgers/Giants).

Or use the current NFL model to show the players as pillars of the community (I still dig the Eddie George commericial where he's trying to instill his work ethic on a couple of guys who just want to swordfight with their rakes).

Or just hire whomever David Stern hired for the NBA to get people to flock to the league like they did in the early 90's.

I got a very nice e-mail from Robin who said my site was full of fun trivia and well-written rhetoric. This site is an excellent diversion.

Hell yeah!

Changing the subject, I would like to announce my displeasure with Gregory Maguire's Lost. It just didn't hold my interest, so I gave up. I didn't feel any kind of connection with the main character. The dialogue was clunky and the plot just seemed to be spinning its wheels. I think it's going for suspense. And it's just not happening.

It's disappointing since I really enjoyed reading his Wicked.

Looking back, though. There was an entire section of Wicked that I ended up just skimming. The style of writing, to me, clashed with the other sections of the book so much that I wondered if it was written well before or well after the other sections.

I don't know what I'll read next yet. Anybody out there reading anything they might suggest? For once in my life my list of books to read is rather small.

Lastly. Would anybody care to explain what rhetoric is? Is it anything like the stuff the Monkees sing about? Because that's not quite what I'm going for.

Sunday, May 11, 2003

Hi, this is Batman, for Hardee's.

Do you like Steak Biscuits?

After a long night of fighting crime in Gotham City, I'm always comforted when I can stop at any of the 19 convenient Gotham City Hardee's locations. I'll order a steak biscuit. That's 100% pure ground steak on a hot buttered biscuit made from scratch. Add a cup of coffee and an order of hash rounds, and I'm set for a trip back to the batcave.

This week at Hardee's, you can get 2 steak biscuits for $2.22!

You don't need to be the world's greatest detective to figure out how great a deal that is!

So once again, the is Batman, and I'm telling to run, don't walk, to your neighborhood Hardee's.

Friday, May 09, 2003

This is the most creative time of the day for me, normally. This is the time that I'll get up and write on whatever stories I've been writing. I'll sometimes write a good blogger post.

But today, the only thing that keeps popping into my is the pop up ad for the specialty bowling balls that just popped up when I was trying to get out of whichever sports site I was looking at. They had balls with Mickey Mouse and Pooh Bear and Miller Lite. And I just kept thinking to myself "That's the coolest thing I've ever seen!"

Thursday, May 08, 2003

I did a favor for a fellow at work last week. Rehiring him for a temporary position. He quit after three hours. He started the day after the day we'd previously agreed. And the day he started, he quit after three hours. Actually, I made him quit. I wasn't going to put up with his complaining and constantly asking for help. I've been put under a ridiculous amount of stress here lately at work. And I didn't need him on my conscience.

See, his catch phrase is "I love you and I'd do anything in the world for you."

He said this four times during the last conversation, and I asked "will you tough it out and actually work?"

And I hurt him.

I told him that if he wasn't going to work out today, he can't work any more.

So he left.

There's a very petty part of me that's quite angry about the whole mess. It's put me in a bad hole at work, because now I'm short basically two people. And this guy was begging me and begging me for work for weeks and weeks. And he gets there and can't work out the first day.

I've got the weekend off next week. I want to go camping. Just get my mind off of the whole mess.

At least last night when the NWA-TNA's Trinity used me to post herself up over the rail, we both understood our parts in that tradeoff.

I think it's just another example of why the site is called Big Stupid Tommy

The infinitely quotable Julie Pittenger has requested: I'd like to add cheesecake, brownies, and sugar cookies to your list of things that are tasty but bad for you. Oh, and Dr. Pepper and Root Beer, too.

Here's what I had for lunch today: A Southwest Caesar Chicken salad from Wendy's.

We just went into another tornado warning here in Rutherford County, so I'll be unplugging before too long. But not before I note that the weather alert siren on the MTSU campus sounds just like the banshee when she screamed in that old Disney movie Darby O'Gill and the Little People.

Tuesday, May 06, 2003

Jeopardy's Tournament of Champions is on this week and next. One of the guy's in tonight's episode featured a feller who I've played quiz bowl against. I think his name was Mark Dawson, but I may be wrong about that. I think he was with the Georgia State squad, though I may be mistaken about that. I always enjoyed playing against the guys from Georgia State, although they usually creamed the tar out of us. They never were obnoxious about the whole thing.

Mark came in second, but with a good score. I predict that he'll make it to the semi-final round.

I didn't do tremendously myself in scoring, but I kept pace with the folks on the show. The first round had a category called tough geography, and I tanked it. The Double Jeopardy round had a sons of painters category, with even more spectacularly bad results.

Qusay Hussein reportedly moved a billion dollars in American and European currency out of the Iraqi central bank. The CNN commentator just now asked "What could this money be used for?"

I just recall the Homer Simpson escapade, as he found $20 under the couch instead of a peanut.

See, money can be exchanged for goods and services.

IT's about $900 million in American cash. He could buy a nuclear weapon, a shitload of Snickers bars. Or perhaps a massage. One really good massage. Or get his house cleaned. Or employ several people. You could pay me my annual salary for roughly 46,200 years.

I want to take a moment to applaud the World Wrestling Federation for bringing back the Intercontinental Title at their next Pay Per View. Last year, after the brand split, the original IC title was merged with Eric Bischoff's newly created World Title. It gave the title some legitimacy (we're talking pro wrestling here), as the IC title had previously been merged with the old NWA/WCW United States title.

However, in doing so, it left mid-carders without a title to fight for. Some of the best WWF matches and feuds ever have centered around that Intercontinental belt. Shawn Michaels/Razor Ramon. Bret Hart/Curt Hennig. In fact, the Randy Savage/Ricky Steamboat match for the IC Title at Wrestlemania III is still one of my three favorite matches of all time.

Personally, I think that belt's the perfect belt for guys on the Raw undercard. See, a belt's an easy reason for a match. Instead of making convoluted feuds up, you can just say Rob Van Dam is fighting Lance Storm for the Intercontinental Title. Here recently, to have these to fight, you'd have to do something stupid. Like have Storm call RVD a hoser. However, now, they can fight over a piece of ornamental clothing, instead. Just like real men should.

If you called me a hoser, I'd have to pummel the tar out of you.

What's more, at Judgment Day, the WWF will be bringing the belt back, giving it to the winner of a battle royal!!!!!

I loves me some battle royals.

It's not enough to get me to pay $29.95 for the PPV. Nothing is. I make chicken feed.

Monday, May 05, 2003

Big Fricking Storm of 2003 by the numbers

4.1 Miles from my house to work
29 Trees uprooted, felled or partially felled between my house and work
4 Business signs broken and/or destroyed
1 Mapco Gas Awning blown down
2 Neighbors' windows broken by hail
2.5 Diameter in inches of hail that fell at the peak of the storm at my house.
94 Speed of straightline winds that whipped through Murfreesboro
94 Minutes of lost sleep
21 Minutes I spent under the kitchen table. Best cover by my reckoning.
6 Minutes of that I was actually awake.
6 Hours--amount of time power was out before I went to work.
1-0 Bill's score, by his reckoning. In actuality, it's still a 0-0 tie.

A brief timeline:

1:58 I'm woken up by thunder
2:01 I decide to listen to radio for weather updates.
2:01:04 MTSU's weather siren goes off.
2:05 I finally wander into the living room.
2:06 Time to pee. (in the bathroom)
2:07 Notice that The storm is bearing down on Murfreesboro
2:16 Storm actually picks up at my house.
2:17 The weatherperson points out a doppler "hook" heading in my direction
2:18 I decide under the kitchen table is the best place for me.
2:21 When the "hook" is supposed to head over the intersection of Greenland and Lascassas
2:22 Power goes out.
2:23 Gets really frigging windy. Whole brick apartment building shudders.
2:30 I must have nodded off. On the kitchen floor. Under the table.
2:41 Storm gets really ugly again.
2:41:03 I play "lightsaber" with the flashlight.
2:41:19 I notice I can hear the neighbors taking shelter in a similar spot next door.
2:43 I get out of under the table a second time.
2:58 Try to go back to sleep in bedroom. No fan. Hot.
3:06 Try to sleep on couch. Hear neighbors talking outside.
3:12 I go with downstairs neighbor to look for hail dents on my truck.
3:15 Back upstairs.
3:30 or so, back to bed.

It was a little more intense than I'm relating. Especially when the whole building shuddered for a second, and you could hear the ceiling/roof creak. When I heard on the radio that we had 90+ mph straightline winds, I didn't know if to believe it. Lots of trees down. Lots of trash and leaves all over the roads. There were three or four lights out between here and work.

Even with all trash on the roads, there was a woman who rode my bumper all the way up Greenland. She zipped around me and road another car's ass all the way up to Highland. There were two cops. One was directing traffic, the other was aiding the electrical crews who were fixing the traffic lights. The second cop walked up to the girl who was tailgating everybody, and told her to slow down.

Sunday, May 04, 2003

The Pepsi One Crisis of 2003 has abated, somewhat. Previously, I'd been unable to find any Pepsi One in any grocery store here in town, with the exception of 20 ounce bottles at my local BP station.

However, recently I've found them at Food Lion and also at the new Wal-Mart.

I thank the Pepsi Corporation as well as the aforementioned fine establishments for the vending of this wonderful soda pop.

However, I can't help but think that I had a little something to do with the re-emergence of Pepsi-One in Murfreesboro. What with my huge daily readership. Why, I'm thinking that the regular readership of my stupid little blog is running somewhere in the fives to the tens.

Thursday, May 01, 2003

"Also, I went to the doctor for a physical. I told him my prostate was fine and he didn't need to check it. First thing out of my mouth -almost."----Joebo "A Man who Knows what He Wants" Thomas

One of the guys on my staff is sick with a chest cold. And to be honest, I'm quite a bit phlegmy in the chest myself. Maybe I shouldn't have made all those jokes about SARS.

Joebo also made a good point that 5 in the morning is a good time for shutting the hell up.

The Nashville Scene did a cover feature on my local wrestling promotion, the NWA-TNA. I suppose any publicity is good publicity, but the article itself was filled with factual errors. Even the cover photo mis-identifies Trinity as Athena. The writer, Robert L. Doerschuk, seemed a little less acquainted with the subject matter than he needed to be. On the whole, I give the article a C-.

Somebody in my apartment complex is either quite forgetful or just gets their kicks slamming car doors at 5 in the morning.. It's almost a daily occurence. I kind of think it's my downstairs neighbor, as I've heard them in the shower around 4:30, and a while back the mom and her son got into a fight really early about how the boy should get up.

Today's (and the last couple of days) fun game is to close a car door loudly while everybody else is still asleep. I'm not kidding here, it happened 8 times in succession. Which means either they were just opening and closing the same door on the car or were walking around the car, opening and closing each door as they went.

By the time I'd gotten awake enough to look out the window, I heard them walking up the walk and going into one of the downstairs apartments.

It's worse than the guy who'd get picked up at 5:45 every morning and his ride would get out there he'd honk the horn to get his attention. That ended nearly in a fight when another of the neighbors went out to tell him to knock it off.